According to a recent Justice Department report, the number of people held in U.S. prisons, jails and other correctional facilities now exceeds two million. On any given day, thousands of prisoners are being transported to and from these facilities. For short trips, automobiles are normally used as a means for transportation.
While being transported in automobiles, prisoners are usually restrained by handcuffs binding their wrists together for the safety of all vehicle occupants. Because handcuffs only restrict the arms of a wearer, handcuffed prisoners sometimes move about the interior of automobiles and, as a result, cause injury to: themselves, the automobiles they are riding in, and the people charged with maintaining their custody. These injuries are, more often than not, the result of deliberate acts to escape.
Experience has shown that a determined prisoner in handcuffs can open the factory-installed seat belts in an automobile thus permitting him virtually unimpeded movement. To address this problem, special bindings and straight jackets have been proposed for limiting prisoners' movements in automobiles. Unfortunately, these products have proven to be difficult to use and unsafe in emergencies when fast evacuation from a vehicle is required. For these reasons, law enforcement agencies have not adopted such products for standard use. A need, therefore, exists for a product that permits control over the movements of a prisoner while in a vehicle to be maintained at all times, yet is safe and easy to use.